


I'll Take Care of You.

by themanicpixieblackgirl



Series: Writing Between the Lines [3]
Category: Twisted (TV)
Genre: Canon Character of Color, F/M, Family Feels, Female Friendship, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Little Sisters, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Multi, Sister-Sister Relationship, does this count as a drabble?, mending friendship, series of drabbles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-29
Packaged: 2017-12-24 08:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themanicpixieblackgirl/pseuds/themanicpixieblackgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four snippets in which Judy, Archie, Sarita, Phoebe, and Clara do what the show won't show: that they care about Lacey, above all else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mother, Dearest.

**Author's Note:**

> From here on out, every snippet I write featuring Archie will feature a non-canon Lacey-friendly Archie, because I was not okay with what they did to his character in that season finale.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Judy Porter talks to Lacey about the video, after having to pick Clara up from school for getting into a fight over it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> exploring the Porter household dynamic.

Lacey turns around to see Clara fly past her, through the kitchen. She doesn’t seem to see Lacey as she drops her backpack at the foot of the stairs so she can bound up them--two at a time--and slam the door behind her, before collapsing into her bed, angry and in tears.  
Judy follows her entry through the kitchen door shortly after and tosses her keys on the kitchen counter.  
“What happened?” Lacey asks, quietly, even though it's a question she doesn't really have to ask.  
She has been standing at the sink, staring out of the window, and spreading peanut butter on the same slice of bread for the past few minutes now, and hearing Clara slam her bedroom door makes Lacey wants to cry, because she knows that Judy bringing her home this early means that Clara got into a fight at school, which means that someone must have said something to her about Lacey.  
The thing about the way she and Clara work together as sisters is Lacey offers emotional support, while Clara prefers to take more physical routes, which is one of the main reasons their parents enrolled her in gymnastics--so she could throw herself into something productive instead of just throwing punches. Lacey has always been the force field surrounding Clara, protecting and taming her all at once.  
When their parents fought, Lacey was quiet, taking in the atmosphere, learning how to read the tension in her mother’s tight smiles so that she could anticipate when Dad was going to bolt out of the house and snap away from them like a rubber band. Clara was confused and angry and, for moments, her shouting at them to please, stop would draw their attention away from their own yelling--but, it only worked for a little while, because then they went to hissed whispers and snapping at each other through bitten-off sentences in conversational tones, which was somehow worse, because then Clara couldn’t scream them out of their anger with each other. Lacey’s instinct to stay calm and assess the situation was a lot more effective, and kept both girls sane through long weekends of working to dance around the electricity in the house. Lacey bought noise-cancelling headphones so she and Clara could sit under the covers in her bed and watch movies on her laptop until they fell asleep after being made drowsy by pizza dough and cheese.  
Lacey is Clara’s corral, so she is not surprised when Judy says, “Apparently, Clara packs quite the punch.”  
Clara doesn’t instigate confrontation and she knows how to choose her battles, so whatever happened today at school had to have been about Lacey.  
Judy sets her purse down with a sigh and moves a piece of hair out of her face. She says, “Maybe this summer, I’ll talk to her about joining karate.”  
“Mom--” Lacey starts to say, but her voice cracks, and she takes big breaths and continues to work at making this sandwich, even though she can’t see it through the blur of tears, and when Judy sees her standing there like that, with her shoulders shaking from the force of trying--and failing to hold back her tears, she doesn’t say anything. She just takes the butter knife and the slice of bread from Lacey’s hands and screws the lid back onto the jar of peanut butter. She takes Lacey into her arms, and Lacey's shoulders slump, heavy with the weight of a needless guilt, and she holds onto Judy as she cries into the cave of her mother’s chest.  
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” She keeps saying over and over again.  
Judy kisses the top of her head and says, “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for.”  
“I shouldn’t have gotten caught. I shouldn’t have...”  
“No.” Judy says, sternly cutting Lacey off before she even unfolds that umbrella of shame over herself. She takes her daughter’s shoulders and says, “Look at me. If you want to cry, go ahead and let it all out--I know this is tough, and you’re allowed to feel like crap. But, I won’t allow you to blame yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. The lesson here isn’t “don’t make out in front of windows”, it’s “don’t stand outside windows and film people making out”.”  
“What about what the other parents are saying? I hooked up with a guy who killed his aunt.”  
And with an oddly light little laugh, Judy says, “Lacey, if the worst I have to worry about is you trying to figure out your feelings for someone who used to be your closest friend, I think we’ll be fine. Okay?”  
Lacey wants to cry some more because she was so afraid she wouldn’t be able to look at her mother, that her eyes would be forced to the floor from the sheer weight of the shame, but she should have known better than that. Judy Porter will not take nonsense from anyone, and she definitely won’t let her own daughter feed it to herself.  
“Now, are you hungry?” Judy asks, and Lacey shakes her head. Crying gave her a headache that will be good to sleep through. But, first...  
"I'll go talk to Clara." She says.  
Judy vetoes that. "Take care of yourself first. I'll take care of Clara." She says, and she opens the refrigerator. She's going to make dinner anyway, just in case Lacey's hungry when she wakes up.  
Lacey says, “Okay. I think I’m going to go lie down for a while.”  
“Alright, honey.”  
“And, hey--mom?” Lacey hesitates at the door, fiddling with the hem of her sweater.  
“Hmm?”  
“I love you.” She says, and it's an admission and a thanks. Judy Porter gives her a smile.  
“I love you, too.”  



	2. Taking Back "Normal"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Lacey and Danny’s diner stunt, Archie trusts Lacey with the truth, and she trusts him to do the right thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Didn’t I tell you guys I’d have to wait for them to screw up the diner scene so I could rewrite it the day after? Well, here it is, because I didn't appreciate that completely out-of-left-field character assassination of Archie.

When Danny walks into the diner to silence and glares, Lacey holds her breath and bites her lip.

Before Archie showed up at her door inviting her to go to the party with him, Danny came in earlier and hopped through her window. She was eating gummy bears, listening to music, and trying to float away when he startled her.  
“Hey--fancy running into you here.”  
“Goddamnit, Danny, this is how people get shot.” She asked, “What are you doing here?”  
“You and I are going to a party.”  
"You and I aren't going anywhere." She said, and it wasn't even personal. She pointed to her sweats; she wasn't going anywhere tonight. But, Danny had an idea.  
The bell clangs when he closes the door, and Lacey releases her breath. Showtime.  
And, it worked. Just like that, Archie was hers again. Just one very public and thorough dismissal of Danny, and Archie was back to sitting at the bar and sharing his onion rings with her.  
“I don’t expect you to forgive me so soon--I don’t know if Sarita ever will, but I just want you to know that I, really, am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”  
He says, “I know. We all do bad things.”  
“What you said to Danny--you poisoned Cole, didn’t you?” She doesn’t even sound judgmental; she’s just asking him to confirm what she already knows.  
He’s not even surprised she asks so bluntly. “You’re a lot of things, Archie--subtle isn’t one of them.” She’s told him before, on occasions when she’s caught him in lies about surprise dates and presents. This one’s a little bit different, though.  
His silence says it all, and Lacey nods.  
“Why didn’t you own up to it?” She asks.  
“Because Scott and I panicked when he actually got sick enough to end up in the hospital, and Regina’s mom was already so set on getting him expelled that it was just too easy.”  
“You can’t just sweep this one under the rug.” She says, and he lets out a wry laugh.  
“Scott’s going to hate me.”  
“Only for a little while. Trust me, it won’t be any worse than having ‘whore’ spray painted across your locker. Want to fess up to *that*?”  
He looks pained. “Lacey, that’s not funny…What happened to you--  
“Archie, it’s fine--I mean, it’s not, but I’ll live. So will you. You’re not Danny. No one’s going to hate you for doing it as much as they hated him when they only thought he did it. You’ll live.” She raises an expectant brow and says, “You *are* going to tell Coach and the boys what you did, right?”  
He lets out a groan and says, “The idea of confessing definitely doesn’t appeal to me--but, the idea of *you* does, though, so I’ll do it tomorrow.”  
“You might want to swing by the Hallmark store on your way to school, though, because there’s no nice way to say, ‘I’m sorry I poisoned you and framed your teammate for it.’”  
Archie looks pained and pitiful, and she is reminded that she can only make those sort of jokes with one person. Speaking of whom…  
“I guess this means Danny will be back to school.” Archie says, and she’s surprised when he adds, “I think I owe the guy an apology.”  
She smiles and says, “I knew my Archie wasn’t a coward.”  
That brings a smile to his face.  
“I’m back to being your Archie?” He asks, and it’s weird how suddenly they switched from her having to wait for him to want her back to him having to earn back *her* respect.  
With a casual shrug, she says, “I’m going to need *someone* to keep me company at the outcast table.”  
He reaches his hand across the bar to touch his fingers to hers, and she can’t help her grin when he says, “I’d love to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this because guys like the Archie they wrote into the diner scene don’t stop their friends from slutshaming their exgirlfriends. Guys like Diner Scene Archie don’t quietly walk away. They’re not the slow boil kind of guys--if they’re going to fly off the handle, they do it right then and there, and I feel like they wasted a character who could have been a great support system for Lacey, so every piece from here on out featuring Archie will be a non-canon, Lacey-positive Archie.


	3. Ditching Town, Ditching Life.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A moment between Lacey and Clara that could span lifetimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song to listen to: Only if for a Night by Florence and the Machine.  
> I wish the show gave Lacey and Clara half as much time as it gives Jo and Rico.

When Lacey gets the call from her mom asking her to go pick Clara up after school, she pulls up to the middle school and almost walks right past Clara on her way to the principal’s office. She’s surprised to find Clara sitting on one of the benches in the lobby and not waiting for her inside the office.  
“Hey…” She says, “When Mom told me to pick you up, I thought you would be…”  
“You thought she meant detention, didn’t you?”  
Lacey blows out a breath and says, “Little bit. Yeah."  
Clara says, “I just had some makeup work to do since I missed math the day Mom had to come get me.”  
“What happened that day?”  
“Some kids said some stuff, and I shut them up.” She says, glossing over details she doesn't think Lacey will appreciate.  
Lacey knows she's being protected.  
“Right.” She says, with a thin smile.  
She sits beside Clara on the bench and rests her cheek on her head.  
She says, “You can’t just go punching everyone who says something mean about me.”  
“Someone has to.”  
“In Green Grove? You wouldn’t have any energy left for gymnastics.”  
Clara says, “I just don’t get it.” The veil over her frustration wears thin as she adds, “It’s not like anyone was rushing to send Regina to Coventry for all of the guys *she* hooked up with. No one spray painted whore, or slut, on *her* locker. If she’d had a little sister, no one would have ever asked *her* if big sis ever taught her any tricks. It’s just...”--Clara squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, cycling through several threads of thought before settling on the most nagging one-- “I love Sarita and Archie, but, come on, everyone knows you’re the nicest of all of them, so why you? Why does everyone, all of a sudden, decide to hate you?”  
Lacey is vaguely aware that she should be telling Clara not to speak that way of dead girls, and--a few days ago, she would have. But, that Lacey is far removed from today’s Lacey, who is having to explain a crappy double standard to her thirteen-year-old sister.  
“None of it matters, okay?” Lacey says, “I don’t know who spray painted my locker, but it doesn't matter anymore. They don’t matter.”  
“Yes, they do. Everyone says words don’t hurt and you’re just supposed to let them roll off you, but it hurts, and you shouldn't have to, and they matter."  
Lacey won’t insult her sister by pretending she's wrong in some futile attempt to preserve her ~innocence~. After all, Clara grew up in Lacey's shadow--she’s not dumb.  
So, instead of lying and pretending, Lacey tells the truth and says, "I know they do."  
She says, "Come on, let's go home", but when they get in the car, she looks over, and Clara is resting her head on the seat belt, staring out of the window and looking exactly how Lacey feels, and suddenly she doesn't just want to go home. Suddenly, Green Grove seems restricting: too small and suffocating.  
“Hey, do you want to just go somewhere else right now?” She asks, and Clara is saying yes before she even finishes the question. She hand Clara her phone. "Here, text Mom and tell her we're going out for a drive. We won't be back for a while."  
She has a full tank of gas and a full range of feelings, so she and Clara will just follow the road out of Green Grove until the things they’re feeling stop making them want to scream into voids and smash glass into concrete.  
She and her sister drive past the high school, past the turn that would take them to the lane where Danny’s house is, past the turn to Archie’s, past the manicured lawn of their perfect little house in this perfect New York suburb, past Johnny Cakes and the small brick-walled stores and boutiques lining either side of the Green Grove strip, and they just drive out and away from it all until the sun spills and sets over the horizon in front of them, and the moon lifts over a city whose lights unfold like a blanket of Christmas tree lights and stars as they approach; just Lacey and Clara and midnight silence at peace with each other as they drive away from the chaos of the town behind.


	4. The Most Important Lesson.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Socio Studies 202: Lacey Porter is better than you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't yet written much on their feelings on Danny/Archie’s interaction, because I want to see how it plays out on the show first. When they screw it up, I’ll rewrite it ;)
> 
> 8/28 added note: I watched the finale, then added the snippet before this one, which is a rewrite of Lacey and Archie's interaction at the diner, so I had to edit this one, too.

Even though Judy told Clara to lie low on all fronts and to be understanding if Lacey needed some space for a little while, Lacey still woke to find her sister curled up in her bed, lying by her side, this morning. Just like old times. Something about that has Lacey walking into school with a smile on her face. Someone snickers when she walks up to open her locker--the janitors have already cleaned off the spray paint, but it seems some would rather she didn’t forget, because behind her, someone coughs, “slut”. Lacey rolls her eyes, squares her shoulders, and turns to face the small gathering of people pretending they weren’t just staring at her. These people are irrelevant. Everyone who mattered to her was at the diner last night, and even if they’re not talking to her, there is no air of outright hostility when she walks into the room. These are just Doug and Eloise’s friends grasping for some shot at popularity.  
She smiles, and her voice is dangerously sweet--she’s spilling her mother’s honey-laced venom when she says, “Alright, out with it. Who here wants to talk?”  
Her eyes sweep over her admirers. No one will make eye contact, and she can’t help the disgust that crosses her face.  
She says, “I mean, if you’re going to aim, at least have the guts to engage.”  
Still nothing. Her hands start to tingle; she grips her binders tighter, and the adrenaline has her bouncing on her toes. She’s buzzing with energy, daring someone to give her a reason to rage.  
She says, “...I’m waiting.”  
A throat is cleared, and they slowly disperse, trying to pretend they’re leaving because this was the natural progression of their actions, and not an unspoken order from Lacey Porter.  
She gently shuts her locker door and heads to class. She smiles to herself. She might not have friends here anymore, but she’s not in this alone; it would seem she has a bit of Clara’s fight inside of her.

Lacey sits at a table by herself in the student lounge at lunch, listening to music and doing homework. Archie has been at school today, but he’s spent most of the day between the coaches’ office and the principal’s. Lacey locked eyes with Jo once, and she’d raised her eyebrows, expecting a confrontation, but Jo just pursed her lips and walked away with--surprisingly enough, Tyler, and not Rico, in tow. Definitely weird, but whatever. Jo can do whatever she wants. Lacey doesn’t have to care. This is still her turf.  
A chemistry textbook and workbook hit the table in front of her with a slap and a thud, and Lacey looks up to see Sarita standing over her with her arms folded across her chest.  
Sarita sighs and says, “You’re sitting at the wrong table.”  
Lacey takes her headphones off and says, “Sorry--I thought you guys weren’t talking to me.”  
Phoebe says, “We aren’t Mean Girls.”  
She and Sarita sit down, and Sarita says, “And, let’s be honest, Lacey, you’re the one who hasn’t been talking to us.”  
Lacey says, “It was complicated, and I didn’t want to have to explain, or choose.”  
“You didn’t have to lie to us.” Phoebe says.  
Lacey puts her pencil down and says, “I love you guys, and I appreciate you sticking by me, but I think I’ve done enough apologizing to everyone for now, okay? Yes, I hooked up with Danny Desai. Yes, I broke up with Archie because I was confused about Danny. I don’t know if I’m still friends with Jo, but you don’t walk onto a crime scene with a someone and not have stuff to work through with them--it’s kind of an exercise in forced bonding. But, I can’t bring myself to feel bad for all of these people who were somehow way more affected by all of this than I was, so can everyone just stop with the goddamn guilt trips already?”  
Phoebe says, “You’re right. We’re sorry.”  
Sarita says, “Yeah, and I’m sorry for what I said about Regina. That was...I was angry.”  
Phoebe continues, “It’s just weird, because it’s so not a you thing to do. And, if you’d hooked up with, literally, anyone else, we’d want to know all of the details. Is he a good kisser? And, like, his hair--I feel like it would be fun to djush and just, like, play with. How does he get it so shampoo commercial ready all of the time? But, see, I can’t ask any of this stuff if it’s about Danny Desai.”  
Lacey says, “Phoebs, it’s okay; you can breathe in between sentences.”  
Phoebe exhales, with a smile. “Right.”  
“I heard Archie told the coach that he and Scott were the ones who sent Danny to the hospital.” Sarita says.  
Lacey smiles a little bit; is it weird that she’s a little proud of him?  
“He’ll be fine.” She says, “Even if they put him in front of the board, he won’t be expelled.”  
Sarita says, “Do you want to get back together?”  
Yes.  
Because Archie is safe.  
No.  
Because she’s not sure she was ever meant to have ‘safe’.  
She says, “I think we are.” Because, that doesn’t say anything about what she *wants*; it’s just a statement of fact.  
Sarita stops picking at her food and lets her fork drop to her plate. With a sigh, she says, “Okay, but I’ll be honest. I was only sort of okay with Jana tagging along with us, but Jo Masterson is an entirely different breed. She can’t sit with us.”  
*I don’t think Jo will want to* Lacey thinks, but she just bites off her laughter and asks, “I thought this wasn’t Mean Girls?”  
Sarita says, “Phoebe’s words, not mine--Regina George had great hair.”  
And, Lacey has to smile as her friends try to sidestep this crack in their lives. Some people in the lounge are still staring at her--half admiration, half wonder and confusion. She’s smiling and laughing, and Phoebe is playing with strands of her hair and comparing it to Lacey’s like she’s trying to figure out the science behind it all--can Danny transfer hair care magic through osmosis?--and it seems like nothing has changed. Lacey is still insulated by this bubble of friendship and love that is somehow completely untarnished by something that would have ruined anyone else. Lacey’s laughter is laugh and lifts over the awed silence of the lunchroom, and the most important lesson here is that you don’t topple a hierarchy when Lacey Porter is the pinnacle, because she’s not just the top of the pyramid. She’s the core.


End file.
